Articles
Sepia toning part 2
17/04/2020
Bleach charts
To gain further control and a better understanding of the sepia toning process, I have created a series of toning charts, one for each of the toning routines that I use. These charts can be used as a reference for choosing a suitable colour tone for an image, they also help in maintaining consistency when I am producing a series of prints over a number of printing and toning sessions.
To make the charts, I cut into strips a few spare prints, writing the bleach times with a waterproof pen on the face of each strip while they were dry. With all the strips from one sheet in the bleach bath at the same time, I could then remove them one by one at the correct times. The figures marked on the charts are the times in minutes indicating how long that particular strip was bleached for.
Eventually after all the testing was completed I had made ten charts, that I labelled A,B,C,D etc. I have chosen just four of them to show here on the website, as I didn’t feel there was sufficient colour difference with the intermediate charts that would show enough variation. All the test prints I used were fibre based Ilford Classic, processed in Ilford PQ developer and Hypam fix.
The following illustrations show how varying the bleach times will effect the depth and colour of the toning.
All the dilutions given below for the bleach and toning baths are made up from the stock solutions. Details of how to make up the stock solutions are in the first article Sepia toning.
Chart B
Chart B
Bleach: 15mls bleach in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts
Toning: 50mlsA 10mlsB in 500mls water. Toning time for all strips 10mins.
Chart C
Chart C
Bleach: 15mls bleach in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts
Toning: 30mlsA 30mlsB in 500ml water. Toning time for all strips 6mins.
Chart F
Chart F
Bleach: 15mls bleach in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts
Toning: 10mlsA 10mlsB in 1ltr water. Toning time for all strips 6mins.
Chart G
Chart G
Bleach: 8mls in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts.
Toning: 50mlsA 10mlsB in 500mls water. Toning time for all strips 10mins.
To make the charts, I cut into strips a few spare prints, writing the bleach times with a waterproof pen on the face of each strip while they were dry. With all the strips from one sheet in the bleach bath at the same time, I could then remove them one by one at the correct times. The figures marked on the charts are the times in minutes indicating how long that particular strip was bleached for.
Eventually after all the testing was completed I had made ten charts, that I labelled A,B,C,D etc. I have chosen just four of them to show here on the website, as I didn’t feel there was sufficient colour difference with the intermediate charts that would show enough variation. All the test prints I used were fibre based Ilford Classic, processed in Ilford PQ developer and Hypam fix.
The following illustrations show how varying the bleach times will effect the depth and colour of the toning.
All the dilutions given below for the bleach and toning baths are made up from the stock solutions. Details of how to make up the stock solutions are in the first article Sepia toning.
Chart B
Chart B
Bleach: 15mls bleach in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts
Toning: 50mlsA 10mlsB in 500mls water. Toning time for all strips 10mins.
Chart C
Chart C
Bleach: 15mls bleach in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts
Toning: 30mlsA 30mlsB in 500ml water. Toning time for all strips 6mins.
Chart F
Chart F
Bleach: 15mls bleach in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts
Toning: 10mlsA 10mlsB in 1ltr water. Toning time for all strips 6mins.
Chart G
Chart G
Bleach: 8mls in 1ltr water. Times in minutes as marked on the charts.
Toning: 50mlsA 10mlsB in 500mls water. Toning time for all strips 10mins.